Typically regarded as a paradise for hikers, climbers and campers, upstate New York also offers some of the finest freshwater scuba diving in the nation. Many Northeast divers already know that New York’s waterways are littered with historic wrecks. Now others can have access to the area’s rich maritime heritage.
New York is the first state to link a series of freshwater sites into “trails.” The Underwater Blueway Trail — an idea nearly 40 years in the making — involves Lake George, Lake Champlain, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, Seneca Lake and “Wreck Valley,” off Long Island’s south shore.
One of the trail’s highlights is the Land Tortoise which has been designated by the Smithsonian Institution as “the oldest intact warship in North America.” The wreck, for advanced divers at 107 feet, is a perfectly preserved British artillery ship that sank in Lake George in 1758.
There’s also a site for beginning divers featuring a 45-foot tour boat, The Forward, that sank in about 40 feet of water in the early 1900s. This site is set up as an underwater wreck-diving classroom.
A half-mile offshore, 25 feet below the surface of Lake Ontario, the hull of the David B. Mills, lies wrecked in three large sections, broken apart after a violent October storm in 1919 after running aground on Ford Shoals.t hat shows and
Strewn about the flat, rocky bottom is the 19th century wooden steam barge’s 202-foot-long barge’s propeller, anchors, winch, engine, boiler, rudder and various pieces of machinery. The wreck is a state Submerged Cultural Preserve and Dive Site and is accessible to beginning recreational divers.
More info at New York State Diving Association
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